I love a good thriller. Page-turning and heart-pounding novels are some of my favorite pastimes, especially when compared to the quick-fix of a skimpy two-hour-long movie that has zero chance of developing character or emphasizing the “Why?”s of a plot. Although Michael Crichton has historically been pretty hit-and-miss with me (Sphere was unpalatable; Congo was enjoyable; Timeline seemed written by a middle-schooler; Jurassic Park was a masterpiece), when I read the blurbs about this novel set inside a plane with terrorists of Chinese descent, I was initially hooked.

But then I got into the first few chapters and had to face a “terrorist” of my own, the incessant blasphemy against Jesus that somehow has become so popular in fiction of this sort. Like with any novel Robert Ludlum ever wrote, the action and story line teased me with offers of immediate and long-lasting thrills and suspense, but the blasphemy simply could not be ignored. In real life, I’ve never met a person able to fit so much cursing into a single conversation, like the characters in Airframe or any of Ludlum’s novels are prone to do—and I was an Active Duty soldier in the U.S. Army! This leads me to believe that perhaps these authors both have some sort of vendetta against Christianity in general or our Lord in particular. Either way, I’ve determined that their works—as outwardly eye-catching as they might be–are simply not worth my time.